Literary Sampler: Essays, Book Reviews, and More...
Monthly Column by Charity Gingerich

Amy was born on December 16, 1867, in the little village of Millisle, County Down, on the Northern Coast of Ireland. Her parents were David Carmichael, a descendant of Scottish Covenanters, and Catherine Filson, a descendant of one whose name, Dalziel, is Gaelic for “I dare” (Elliot 19). Amy was fortunate to inherit a double portion of this tough spirit, which would serve her well in the long difficult years of service on the mission field. At the age of 25 she believed she heard the voice of God calling her to “Go” and knew from the depths of her fiery soul that she could not join the ranks of complacent Christians to “liv[e] out the rest of her life in pious prosperity” (Sharp 123). Amy had no idea at the time where she was supposed to go, but this would prove to be of secondary importance; it was enough that she was ready and willing. Frank Houghton, who knew Amy personally and is considered the primary historian of her life and work, separates her life into three broad categories. These are “Preparation for a life work” (1867-1901), which deal primarily with her childhood and years of schooling, “The warfare of the service” (1901-1931), her most active years of missionary life, and “The keeping of the charge” (1931-1951), her years of infirmary following an unfortunate accident (5).

It could be said that Amy had a very appropriate childhood for one who would someday have aspirations for the “rough and tumbles” of missionary life. Though the Carmichaels were relatively well off financially (the Carmichael flourmills had been in the family the past hundred years), they were also known “for their integrity and for treating their employees with generosity” (Houghton 3). In her book A Chance to Die, Elizabeth Elliot talks of how Amy and her seven siblings were taught from an early age to care about people, and not to be stingy in sharing with others less fortunate the blessings that they had been given (20). The Carmichael children were blessed with “no nonsense” parents. They were not coddled and pampered; indeed, there were “five kinds of punishment” to be meted out in the case that their behavior went from mischievous to down-right wicked, which apparently was not an unusual occurrence (Elliot 21).

It is interesting to note that Amy, who would later become such an admired figure of Christian piety (in modern terms, a Mother Teresa), was known in her youth as a “wild Irish girl,” and “something of a rebel” (Houghton 16). So it was that the firm discipline and love that pervaded her home gave Amy the guidance and stability she needed, put steel in her backbone, and prepared her for a very special twofold ministry of which she was as yet unaware (Elliot 21).

Amy received the first few years of her education from a series of governesses before attending the prim and proper Marlborough House in Harrogate, a Wesleyan Methodist boarding school. Following this, she began attending Victoria College in Belfast but was forced to terminate her formal education when her family faced a financial crisis following the untimely death of her father (Hill). By this time Amy had experienced an “evangelical conversion.” She was still impulsive and headstrong, but she was channeling her energy into a series of “good works” for the poor (Sharp 122). There is no evidence that she wasted any of this energy in a resentful attitude concerning the ill fortune that had befallen her family.

Though her literary work often seems to be secondary to her long missionary career, Amy’s books, letters, and numerous poems are very much a part of her legacy. While at first there seems to be a dispute over how many books she actually published during her long life, The Dohnavur Fellowship, the mission in India which she founded, reports that she published a total of thirty-seven books, seven of which were published after her death. According to Eric Sharp, many of her books have been translated into approximately fifteen different languages (122). Much of Amy’s work, the first twenty-two books, to be precise, deals exclusively with the practical aspects of missionary life (Sharp). It is said that probably “no active missionary [had] ever published so much…or [had] written better, in point of style” (Sharp 122). She was a gifted writer, but she chose to use her gift in a very particular way. It was a talent, a craft that she was not unaware of and obviously labored over. She once wrote, “Words should be like colors, each one a dot of color supplying a need, not one over"(Houghton 333). In a way, Amy’s missionary career was a “catalyst” to her vibrant literary success, though she was not always applauded and accepted for what she wrote. Amy wrote with intensity and an urgency that could not be ignored and she never tried to gloss over the difficult and ugly aspects of missionary life. She refused to feed her readers the things they wanted to hear, namely glowing stories of conversion and the systematic defeat of paganism, choosing instead to give them the blunt, cold truth (Elliot 161-162).

The call she had heard while in her twenties finally bore fruit in 1886 and 1887 when Amy attended the Keswick conventions (Sharp 122). This was a group that put a great deal of emphasis on holiness and missions, believing strongly in the lines of Matthew 24:4: “And this gospel of the kingdom will be preached […] and then the end will come” (Sharp 123). Not surprisingly, Amy became the first Keswick missionary, and in 1893, without training and with no real preparation, she set off for the west coast of Japan (Sharp 123). Thus began the “chaotic” period of her life. After only a few short months in Matsuye, she suffered from what was known as “Japan head” (severe migraine headaches) and was forced to leave for a time of recuperation in China, with the knowledge that her constitution was not suited for the climate in Japan (Elliot 95-96). For a time it looked as though she would begin a new work, feeling that God was now calling her to go to Sri Lanka. This new plan was cut short, however, when the illness of a close family friend summoned her home to Ireland (Sharp 123). Her brief stint as a missionary was over – or was it?

While at home, no doubt waiting to see what would happen next, Amy prepared to publish the first of her many books, From Sunrise Land (1895), which was based on the letters she had written from Japan (Sharp 123). Not long after a new call came, this time to go to India, again, under the Keswick Convention. Amy arrived in India in November of 1895. She would remain here until her death in 1951.

In 1901 the second phase in Amy’s life, known as “The warfare of the service,” was begun (Houghton 5). After studying Tamil (which she is said to have mastered), she organized an independent group of women evangelists known as “The Starry Cluster,” who “traveled from village to village by bullock cart to carry the gospel to women who knew nothing of Christ” (Delancy, Rogers, and Longton 2). She also founded what would become known as the Dohnavur Fellowship of South India, a place of refuge for young girls who were “given or sold to Hindu temples for the purpose of prostitution” (Delancy, Rogers and Longton 2). For the rest of her life, this was to be the core of her ministry; Dohnavur became a haven for young girls -- and eventually, young boys, rescued from pagan practices from which they had no other escape.

In 1903 Amy’s fourth book, entitled Things As they Are was published. This book, in her own words, was “a battle book, written from a battlefield where the fighting is not pretty play but stern reality” (Houghton 330). It was a dark book which dealt with little known facts of India’s underworld, primarily the trafficking and selling of beautiful Indian babies to “temple women,” who would train them to follow in their footsteps. Initially the book was rejected by publishers with the excuse that it was “too pessimistic for a Christian public whose complacency was fed by stories of success and advance” (Houghton 329). Christians both at home and in India did not want to believe that the things she described in her book were true, and there was even an attempt made to send Amy home to Ireland (Elliot 161). Amy was amazed by the negative reactions her book received, but was equally undaunted by them (Houghton 330). She refused to back down or modify her work, exclaiming that “the dead weight of heathenism is heavy enough, but when you pile on the top of that the incubus of a dead Christianity – for a nominal thing is dead – then you are terribly weighted down and handicapped” (Houghton 288). Despite the initial conflict it caused, the book would be re-printed twelve times (Houghton 330).

The third and last phase of Amy’s life, known as “The Keeping of the Charge” refers to the years between 1931-1951, which would prove to be perhaps the most difficult of her long life. In September of 1931 she suffered a fall which broke her leg (Sharp 126). Despite her demanding life-style as a missionary, she had never enjoyed particularly good health, and had in fact lived for years “close to the edge of her physical and mental endurance” (Sharp 126). The fall was to be the beginning of her seriously declining health, and because medical resources were not what they are today, she suffered greatly, with one symptom leading to another, more severe (Sharp 126). Though she would live another twenty years and write thirteen more books, she was would eventually become completely bed-ridden (Sharp 126). On January 18, 1951, she went to be with the One who had called her so many years before into a life of selfless service. She was buried in the garden at Donhavur known as “God’s Garden,” with a simple bird table serving as her head-stone, engraved with the word “Ammai,” or “revered mother” (Sharp 126).

Works Cited

Carmichael, Amy. Gold Cord: the Story of a Fellowship. Fort Washington: CLC, 1932.

Dick, Lois Hoadley. Amy Carmichael: Let the Little Children Come. Chicago: Moody, 1984.

Elliot, Elizabeth. A Chance to Die. Old Tappen, NJ: Fleming, 1961.

“Hinduism and Christianity.” Encyclopedia Britannica. 2004. Encyclopedia Britannica Online. 1 Nov. 2004 http://search.eb.com/eb/article?tocld=9031775.

Tyson, Lois. Critical Theory Today: a User-Friendly Guide Vol. 2070. . New York: Garland Publishing, 1999.

Copyright © 2007 by Charity Gingerich.
 

About the Author: Charity graduated from Kent State University with a BA in English, as well as minors in writing and history in 2006. This fall (2008) she will be entering the MFA in Creative Writing program at West Virginia University where she will be specializing in poetry. Charity always welcomes any questions/suggestions about this column. Click Here to send her an email.